


Agony

by CuriosityRedux



Series: Dragon Drabbles Berk [16]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Daddy Hiccup, F/M, Hiccstrid - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 22:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16752568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuriosityRedux/pseuds/CuriosityRedux
Summary: He never knew hours could stretch so long.





	Agony

**Agony**

**-**

Women keep flitting up and down the stairs, shoving him out of the way before he can ask questions or get answers. Sometimes it’s Astrid’s mother, with a pleased little smile on her plump mouth as she ignores Hiccup’s reaching hand. Sometimes it’s his own, with a stoic expression and a sympathetic glance. Nobody waits. Nobody listens.

The chief rakes his fingers through his hair and paces the length of their living room. He’d been allowed to stay with her for a while— when she was up and walking and complaining about being fawned over between whimpered contractions. Her pains were hissed through her teeth and squeezed into his fingers until he thought they might break. They were nothing like  _this_.

Her agonized sob is like a knife twisting between his ribs. He can’t breathe for the way her tears are caught in his throat. Hiccup paces and waits and waits and paces. Every now and then she falls blessedly silent, and that’s when he can hear the comforting murmur of the women soothing her and encouraging her. That’s what he’s living for right now— the mumbled words he can’t even make sense of. Because those are what tells him that nothing’s gone wrong. 

But  _gods_  how can it not be? How can she wail so heart-wrenchingly and be okay? Sometimes they turn his feet to lead and make his knees so weak he has to lean against the wall. And that’s only to  _hear_  them.

The front door to the Haddock home swings open, and before Gobber can completely hobble inside, Hiccup has his hand knotted in his mentor’s shirt. 

“They won’t talk to me,” he blurts. “They kicked me out, and nobody will tell me what’s going on.”

Gobber only snorts and shakes him off, crossing the room and taking a seat by the fire. “Yeh know perfectly well what’s going on. Nothing yeh’d be any good for.”

Astrid’s sharp shriek of pain suddenly jolts from the floor above, and both of the men jump. She cries something unintelligible, and the chief nearly tears the braids from his hair. 

“It’s been hours now. Something should have happened.” His teeth are going to break the skin of his lower lip, the way he’s worrying it between their sharp edges. Anxiety stabs through his veins and makes him shake. 

Gobber chuckles. Pats the chair next to him. Hiccup ignores it at first, but then he makes his feet move across the floor and falls into the proffered seat. 

“Stoick couldn’t stand the wait either,” the old Viking sighs nostalgically. “And what with this runt bein’ early?” He clamps a hand down on the back of the chief’s neck and gives him a warm little shake. “Odin help me…”

Hiccup exhales on something like a smile. He can’t seem to catch his breath, but just  _hearing_  his father’s name staunches his terror. He tries to picture the previous chief in his position— a tight tangle of nerves and fear and excitement and distress— and for the first time since he last saw Astrid he feels something like comfort. 

“I just hate not knowing anything. Sitting here twiddling my thumbs,” he mutters, rubbing tired eyes with the heels of his palms. “Snotlout tried to get me to go flying.  _Now._ Of  _all_  times.”

"Eh, wouldn’t have been a bad idea earlier,” Gobber shrugs. “Not now, of course. Not when yer about to be a father.” The crooked raising of his mouth is suddenly painfully paternal, and Hiccup meets his gaze with a silent thanks. 

“Gods. I wasn’t scared of that until you said it.” His laugh is wry. 

“Aye, well.” With another affectionate squeeze on the younger man’s neck, he sighs. “If yer anything like yer father, everything from this night on is bound to scare yeh.”

Hiccup half-smiles. He’s about to open his mouth, to speak again, but something like alarm suddenly triggers in the back of his mind. A sense of complete and utter  _wrong_.

And that’s when he realizes his wife’s screams have died down. And something else has risen in volume— the conversation of other women, spoken in terse, commanding phrases.

Valka’s shout cuts through his realization. “Hiccup! Towels!”

The chief is on his feet in one painful heartbeat. He attempts to fly up the stairs, but he feels Gobber grab him by the upper arm. 

“Get them what they need,” he advises sternly. The amusement is gone from his expression. “Yeh’ll be no good to anyone in a panic. Take a breath. Get the towels. Do what they tell yeh.”

Hiccup nods shortly, pulling away to duck under his arm and dig through the spare linen trunk. His hands are trembling, and he tries to take deep breaths and rein them back under his control. Gritting his teeth, he snatches an armful of towels and then resumes his sprint up the stairs. 

His mother meets him at the door, and before he can even take inventory of the chaos he’s being dragged inside and shoved toward his marriage bed. “Go. Talk to her.”

His legs are numb. Someone pulls him forward and sits him down in the chair by the bed. Trying not to let the panic show on his face, he glances down at his wife and attempts a smile.

She’s so pale. When he’d seen her last, her cheeks were bright red with overheated effort. Now they’re a ghostly white, her entire face waxy and misted with sweat. Her cracked lips are just barely parted, and he can hear her whispery whimpering over the sharp barking of the women surrounding them. Her hair is limp around her face, her nightgown drenched and clinging to her skin. 

 _Gods_  something went so wrong so quickly. He tries to resist the urge to check and see what her mother is doing between her thighs, but he knows there’s blood. So much blood. 

Her eyes are hooded and dazed, but when he sits down, she glances in his direction. “Did you see him?” she mumbles, and her words are so quiet he can hardly make them out. “I didn’t… couldn’t hold him…”

Hiccup’s head snaps up. His gaze scans the room until he finds his mother and the midwife in the corner of the room, working over something with their backs turned to the bed. His heart jumps between his teeth. 

“Mom!” he shouts, and he can see the word hit straight between Valka’s shoulderblades. She flinches, and then glares over her shoulder. 

“ _Talk_ to her,” she commands again. Then he’s all but ignored.

He looks back to his wife. It’s so hard to look at the hazy worry in her eyes. “Only for a second,” he lies. There might as well be a hand choking him, as hard as it is to speak. “You did so good, Astrid. You did so good.”

Her forehead furrows with uncertainty. He tries to smooth out the lines with his thumb. “Something’s wrong.” Tears are welling in her lashes, bubbling over to trickle down her temples. “I can’t— why can’t I hold him?”

“He’s so cute, they don’t want to let him go.” Hiccup squeezes her hand in his. “We just have to be patient a little longer." 

Then there’s a noise— so faint he’s not sure he’s not imagining it. A tiny perturbed cough. Then louder, he hears his mother sob. 

That sends alarm through his system, but when he looks up, her back is no longer turned to him. She’s smiling and shifting a blood-stained little bundle in her arms. “I’m sorry, Hiccup,” she says, walking around the bed. Her eyes are red and shining. “He just looked so much like yer father just now…”

And then Astrid’s pulling her hand away weakly, reaching out for the bundle with tired arms. And his mother is leaning down and setting the blankets on his wife’s breast. And he hears it again— a fussy little sniffle.

Gravity shifts. Time slows. For a second Hiccup doesn’t hear the still-stressed chattering of the women or the crackling of the hearth or the racing pulse of his heart, just that alien little cry as his son meets his mother for the first time. And his mother was right— he looks just like the previous chief. Broad cheekbones, a wide little nose, and even a tuft of damp red hair. The smile Astrid gives the newborn is so bright, so beaming that it almost hurts to look at her. 

"Hey, my love,” she whispers raggedly. He can tell she’s too tired to lift her head, so he slips his arm beneath her neck to help her see. “I’ve been waiting all day for you, little one." 

Suddenly Hiccup can’t look away from her face. So pale, so tired, tear-streaked and utterly beautiful. He leans forward to press his forehead to her temple. She is perfect and his son is perfect.

He knows there’s still danger. There’s still a strained atmosphere to the room. But they’ve waited this long, and for his little family, he’ll wait an eternity more.


End file.
